Abstract
This paper discusses the coordinated use of the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) learning cycle with additional bodies of knowledge. This approach furthers focused understanding and appreciation for taking action within social systems. Adapting the SSM learning cycle extends the richness of the real-world situation understood from an analytic soft systems perspective to encompass the appreciation of a problematical situation using additional bodies of knowledge to explain and explore. Examples illustrate using SSM to foster learning and improve teaching in a research education practice, in a national level research project and, further, in professional in-service at advanced level education.
Highlights
Viewing the world around us and thinking about it in terms of systems has a long tradition, and can be described in different ways
Systems Thinking recognizes that complex situations, i.e., the real world, involve interrelated factors that emerge when multiple humans with different interests are included as objects of study [3]
Systems Methodology (SSM) has been applied to various fields and is well known within the research disciplines
Summary
Viewing the world around us and thinking about it in terms of systems has a long tradition, and can be described in different ways. Cabrera states that how the world is and how humans think of the world is a mismatch: “Wicked problems result from the mismatch between how real-world systems work, and how we think they work” [4]. He argues that the real world is complex and random, adaptive and organic, multivalent, agnostic, and non-linear. Gharajedaghi [5] advocates a paradigm shift from analytical to holistic thinking He states “We see the world as increasingly more complex and chaotic as we use inadequate concepts to explain it. He argues that a holistic language, a language of systems, will allow us to see though chaos and understand complexity
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